Help with settling a 7mo, he's a wee bit spirited!

[tinydancer]

I am after some advice for settling my lovely 7mo. He is a gorgeous happy bub, but I have always had to work quite hard to get him to settle for naps and sleep. He is very social, interested and happy, and is almost like he doesn't want to miss out on anything. He is a mix of textbook and spirited, definitely the latter when it comes to sleep.

At the moment I am settling him for naps by taking him into the room, saying 'sleepytime, bubba', playing 2x lullabies, closing curtains and holding him until he is either relaxed or making movements like he wants to be in his cot. Once he's in bed he will roll onto his side, suck his fingers, and stroke my arm until asleep... on a good day! If I haven't got the timing just right, he will grin at me, flap his arms, try and crawl out of the cot and play. I walk out of the room at that point, as I don't want him to think that its playtime and he will almost immediately start crying. I don't want to do CC or CIO obviously, so will wait until the crying amps up and then go back into the room and try and settle him in the cot by rubbing his tummy, shhh-ing, and if tired he will stroke my arm until asleep.

Have I turned myself into a sleep prop?? How do I get him to self settle, but without doing CC? I'm finding it really hard to find a balance. Today I spent an hour trying to get him down for his afternoon nap, and gave up in the end (he grinned as soon as we left the room - cheeky).

He was sleeping through the night until 4mo, when it all went out the window. He now wakes for his DF, and then 2-3 times after that. I am pretty sure I will need to sleep train him to get rid of these NF, but I don't have the home support at the moment and can't quite face it just yet. I think being OT isn't helping his nights.

Maybe I am getting his nap timings all wrong? I don't know... Mornings are generally ok, only 5-10mins to settle and be asleep. He is one of those babies that wakes up as soon as the car stops moving, and then thinks he's had a full sleep and is good to go for another few hours. I find it really hard (impossible?) to get his sleeps right on days that we go out and then every day is different...

[Martini~]

Can you please honey post your routine? Can he be under or overtired?

[tinydancer]

Thanks for your reply, Martini. Reading back on my post I maybe sound all over the place. I feel like I am putting so much thought and energy into his sleep and I still can't get it right.

I haven't been keeping notes for the past couple of weeks because I felt like I was obsessing over it a bit. Here is yesterday and today which I can *kind of* remember how it played out. We have had relatively low key days with no errands to run. On the days we go out I feel like things can really go off track and I have no idea what will work in terms of sleep.

Yesterday
WU 7.00a - awake
S 10.40a - 12.15p *longer A than usual here, we got caught at a neighbours house but LO fell asleep within minutes of being laid in his cot
S 3.30 - 4.15 *soothed for usual 10mins, walked out when he started playing and he cried/grizzled for a few minutes and then actually put himself to sleep!!! I couldn't believe it. Maybe exhausted from long morning??
I tried to resettle after 45mins, but no luck there
BT just before 7.00pm
*Grizzled a couple of times but resettled himself, and didn't properly cry until 10pm, where I fed him. This felt like a better day than normal, as sometimes I get the OT wakeups and a big cry out around 9pm-ish
NF - 1.40a
NF - 5.15a, took ages to get back to sleep after this feed, didn't go back to sleep until 6.30a

Today
Awake - 6.30a
S - 9.40a - 10.20a *could not be resettled!
S - 1.40p - 3.45p *Had to walk out of room for him to cry for a couple of minutes before going back in to offer up my arm. Woke after 1hr, resettled within 5mins back to sleep.
BT - 6.45p *again, had to walk out of room for a couple of mins as he started playing

I'll keep a better eye on the next few days.

I'd love to do the very best possible job in getting everything ready for the inevitable nightime sleep training. I know that Tracey recommends dropping the DF soon, and I'd love to be able to drop at least one of those NFs. I think he likes going back to sleep with a nice full tum, rather than needing the food. What do you recommend in terms of getting rid of that DF?

Just wondering - do babies ever go from NOT needing a feed overnight, to needing one once they get more active & mobile? Or would you say if he's previously been able to sleep through, that he is physically ok to now?

[Martini~]

Re feeding - yes, they may do it but it can be a change like +/-1 feed I would say within a normal range because of growth spurts etc. And if he didn't want a feed and than needs 2 more I would say that maybe he is hungry as he is eating less during day or maybe routine is not ok.

Re your problems, I would say that your problems come from missing A times. Have you ever followed them? 3h seems to be not enough and he is fighting the nap and short napping, 3:30 seems to be more reasonable after a good nap/night, but too long after a short nap.

He also seems to have one shorter and one longer nap which is possible at that age. So if he stops giving you 2 nice 1.5h naps, I would accept one 45 and once 2h let's say. Routines:

7am wu
10:30-12 nap
3:30-4:15/4:30 nap
7pm BT

or

7am wu
10am - 10:45 nap (after 3h A)
13:45 - 15:45 nap (after 3h A but after short nap)
7pm BT

[tinydancer]

I would say that maybe he is hungry as he is eating less during day or maybe routine is not ok.

ok - good to know, thank you. Maybe it is the routine thing, then. I feed on waking every time, solids 1-1.5hr after that and then sometimes a top up feed before sleep if he seems hungry. He hasn't ever seemed very hungry in the mornings, maybe because he's been eating all night 

Yep, I have been following A times since he was about 3mths. I had some great help on here a couple of months ago which helped me to extend them out to 3hr, I guess I hadn't realised they had jumped again to 3:30 after good sleeps. I've been giving that a go the last couple of days and it seems to be going ok, last night I only had 1 NW which was amazing.